Pushing my thinking forward…and maybe yours too

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Upgrading Our Practice

Recently Amy and I had the chance to stay in a nice hotel for a night and were excited for a wonderful room, atmosphere, and a glorious night’s sleep. Unfortunately we were awoken bright and early by the sounds of hammers, saws, and drills working on a renovation project in a nearby section of the hotel. As I lie awake, frustrated with this early wake-up call, I began thinking about how this connected in some way to my life.

I soon recognized that this renovation was very similar to what we’re trying to do as educators. See, just like in a school, this hotel couldn’t shut itself down for a year while it did upgrades to the whole building all at the same time. Instead, they chose to improve small sections, one at a time, over the course of a longer period. Similarly, as educators we can’t just close the door to our classroom, forget about the kids, and work on improving.

The kids keep coming, day after day, for an entire school year. So, if we want to improve as educators, it is a simple fact that we’re going to have to do just as this hotel and upgrade as we go along. The hotel had chosen a small focus area to improve while continuing to run the rest of the hotel as usual. As educators there is always something to improve and, in fact, there are usually many things to improve. However, with limited time and energy due to the fact that students need the vast majority of our attention, the best thing for us to do is choose one small area and focus on upgrading that skill set.

If you’re anything like me when I was in the classroom, you can see multiple target areas for growth in your own practice. However, you can’t tackle all of those areas at once, it’s time to focus in and choose one specific thing to work on for the short-term. Perhaps, for you, this small focus area has to do with your use of formative assessment, classroom management strategies, or curriculum planning. Maybe it is questioning strategies, creating more engaging lessons, or including opportunities for student reflection. Whatever you decide as your area of focus, set all those other areas of growth aside for the time being and focus on that one specific skill set.

As we come to the end of the first semester I want to encourage you to be reflective about how the first half of the year has gone. Examine your practice as a teacher and work to identify one area of growth for the second semester. Remember, you can’t renovate the whole hotel all at once, pick an area of focus and stick with it. Work to improve in this one area. When you see the growth you’re looking for, then you can move on to another area of focus, one at a time, slowly upgrading your practice.